Italian Veggie Pizza

So tonight the weather was extremely rare. Typically at the end of July it is close to the 100°F mark and dry as a bone… However, last week it rained (significantly) everyday and this weekend has been wonderful – temps in the 80’s. Tonight it is about 73°F with a light rain. It makes me ready for fall. Also – “Shrek” is on TV so in honor of the lovely weather and one of our favorite movies, we decided to make Gingerbread Man Veggie Pizza and snuggle on the couch. My mother-in-law recently gave me a big gingerbread man cookie pan and I have had no use for it (obviously it is the middle of summer – no gingerbread cookies here). Anyway it worked perfect tonight.

1 GF pizza crust mix (homemade or bought – tonight we used Hodgson Mill’s packaged mix)

1 cup pizza/marinara/spaghetti sauce (we made our own – I’ll post later)
4- ¼” slices of egg plant, cut into small strips
3 oz sliced mushrooms (about 12-1/8” strips
¼ cup sliced zucchini
¼ cup diced onion
1 Tbsp olive oil
½  tsp parsley
½ tsp basil
1 cup shredded cheese (we used apple smoked Gruyere cheese)
Parmesan cheese

• Make pizza crust according to package instructions. Spread onto greased pizza pan or cookie sheet and let rise for about 20 minutes. Pre-bake for about 10 minutes.
• While crust is pre-baking, eggplant, mushrooms, zucchini, parsley and basil in the olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes (veggies will still be slightly crisp – this is what you want).
• Once crust is ready, add sauce and toppings. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and parmesan cheese evenly. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until crust is crisp and cheese is melted.
• NOTE: You can use other veggies if you’d like, but this is what we had on hand. Feel free to add in pepperoni or sausage, etc.
• NOTE: After filling up our gingerbread pan with pizza dough, we had about enough dough to make a 8 inch pizza. Otherwise, depending on the crust mix you have, this should make about 2 – 12 inch pizzas.